Many Roads, Highways Have Both Honorary, Official Names

Readers: Many of the region’s well-known roads and highways also have honorary names, some more obscure than others. More than a few of them have more than one designation. Here’s a partial list, courtesy of the Florida Department of Transportation and local historical scholars and archives:

Purple Heart Highway (State Road 710 – also known as the Beeline Highway – from the Martin County line to U.S. 1): Veterans pushed to rename the highway – which runs past the Riviera Beach VA hospital – to honor servicemen and servicewomen who were injured. (May 18, 1996)

Moroso Memorial Highway (State Road 710, or Beeline, between Military Trail and Indiantown Road): The portion honors Palm Beach County auto-sports legend Dick Moroso, who founded an automotive parts empire and owned the Moroso Motorsports Park near Palm Beach Gardens. Named to the Palm Beach County
Sports Hall of Fame in March 1998, he died at 59 of cancer eight months later. (June 11, 1999)

Glynn Mayo Highway (State Road 811 or Alternate A1A, north of Donald Ross Road to southeast of U.S. 1, Jupiter): Mayo, who died of cancer May 29, 1992, was Jupiter’s first police chief and had run the department for 28 years. (June 1, 1992)

Jerry Thomas Memorial Bridge (Blue Heron Bridge to Singer Island): The West Palm Beach banker was in the Florida Senate from 1965 to 1972 and Senate president 1971 to 1972. He wrote or co-sponsored hundreds of laws, including the Florida Sunshine Law, which keeps most government records and meetings public. Thomas died of cancer at 51 in 1980. (1981)

Robert A. Harris Bridge (Lake Avenue across the Intracoastal to Lake Worth Municipal Beach): The current bridge, the third one at the spot, opened in 1972. Harris, a retired Air Force officer, was director of the Lake Worth Chamber of Commerce from 1961 until his death in 1969. (June 16, 1970)

Ben Sundy Memorial Highway (Atlantic Avenue from Delray Beach city limits to Florida’s Turnpike): Sundy, one of eight children of John Sundy, Delray Beach’s first mayor, helped run the family feed and fertilizer business and served on the Palm Beach County Commission. He died in 1964. (July 13, 1967)

Haven Ashe Bridge (State Road A1A across Boca Raton Inlet): Ashe was the first tender on the original one-lane, manually operated drawbridge, which replaced a wooden fixed span in 1930 and was itself replaced by the current mechanical span in 1963. (June 8, 1965)

View Comments
0

There are no comments yet. Be the first to post your thoughts. Sign in or register.